8,5:1 Amasia

The duplication of Amasia, a city in Cappadocia, is one of the most frequently noticed defects in the Tabula, and brings in its train several other oddities which in no way conform to the geographic situation on the ground.

The reverse engineering of the mix-up offered here is that by Ramsay of a century ago, fine-tuned by the late David H. French, an archaeologist and a pre-eminent specialist in his lifetime on the Roman roads in modern Turkey. Using peripli, he recognized that the inland stations inscribed between inland Amasia and Sinope are in fact towns and landmarks on the Black Sea shoreline from Amastris to Sinope.

The similar first syllables of Amastris and Amasia may have played a role in this confusion. Stefane is clearly Stephane, Cythero would be Κύτωρος or Cytoros and Cromen must be Cromna. French's emendation thus shifts that route north to the coast, reunites the two instances of Amasia (stressing that the Anadynata-Amasia road must surely have passed north of Gangra) and proposes that Tycae, Cereas and Mileto must be now unfindable stations on the road from Amasia via Neoclaudiopolis to Sinope.

Miller had earlier made almost no progress on the problem, vainly seeking the three unfindable places on the Black Sea shore and admitting he could only offer Vermutungen (643) about their locations, then went on to unwisely claim Carambas must have been an old name for Neoclaudiopolis (670).

Talbert also found no answer, opining that Amasia appears "on two different routes" (211) and he speculated that the chartmaker "had to place increasing reliance upon non-Roman data once his knowledge of routes from familiar sources diminished when they proceeded beyond the Roman Empire" (141). This cannot be, as Amasia was not beyond, but well within the empire. Talbert notes that all three lost stations have entries in the Pauly-Wissowa RE.

Graphic defects often provide valuable clues to the design and execution of a chart. This major muddle is especially interesting because it could hardly have been the fault of any copyist, but can be plausibly laid at the door of the chart-maker. It may indicate that the chart-maker was relying on a set of chorographic maps where the edges of the sheets showed a list of more distant destinations but gave no sound information about how the traveller might get there.

Activate and deactivate the emendation several times to see how the alterations took place.